Yomihon
by OnyxIvyStone
Summary: Being alone had hardened them and I was still soft. They protected me, but not because they loved me. It was because they wanted something soft to still be in the world. If I lived, it didn't so much matter whether or not they died... (All Cast Story-Fuu Central Character)
1. Love

_With loving dedication to my pirate and my ronin._

"It wasn't about love, it was about duty in a time when people had stopped believing in that kind of thing. It was about having a reason to fight, about a reason to keep fighting and pushing our selves to be better. It was about being strong and completing the journey- but it wasn't about love. That much is certain," her eyes focused on the thin ribbon of yellow light as it cascaded down and lay across her open palms with a distant kind of warmth. "You can't just walk away from something. You can't just leave people behind wondering. It was about making things right in a world that was so wrong and twisted to begin with. The three of us were orphans, you see? Anyone who might have been there for us either died or left us behind. The only difference between us was I hadn't had as long to deal with it. Being alone had hardened them and I was still soft. They protected me, but not because they loved me. It was because they wanted something soft to still be in the world. If I lived, it didn't so much matter whether or not they died. They would have saved something they saw as worth fighting for in a world that was slowing forgetting what it meant to be an honorable warrior or even a scoundrel with a heart of gold. They weren't heroes. They were everything except heroes and they were mine. They're out there somewhere. They're living and finding some other softness to rest themselves in. They'll die old men believing they saved their worlds because they saved me. They'll never know they failed and I'm glad for that. I am at peace."

"You could save your life. You could save your miserable life, all you need to do is tell us what we want to know."

She looked up from her hands. They had become so thin. Every part of her was thin, like she was slowly fading away. She met their eyes where they stood outside her cell. "I don't know. The best I can tell you are which directions they went at the crossroads. My heart tells me that they are happy. It tells me that my ronin went and reunited with his lover and my pirate is somewhere on the seas, feeling the wind on his face. My heart tells me they are safe, hidden, and, even if I wanted to tell you where they were, I could not. We said we would meet again, but we knew we never would. At least not in this life."

"Have you no love of your life? No love of your country? What you tell us will not only save your life, it will save this country. We have hunted them for nearly three years to no avail. We have kept you alive here in the hope of drawing them out. They are rogues. They cut through good men who would have helped bring this country into the future along with its people. Men who would have given their lives-"

"They did give their lives. Your men gave their lives to protect what they believed was correct," she replied darkly and looked away, back to the light. It had moved slightly. "You don't carry a sword or draw a blade unless you are prepared to die. They taught me that. Every time they drew steel, they knew it might be their last time to hear the song as sword slipped from scabbard and so they danced in the only music they knew- a death song. And I already told you; none of this was about love. Even now, it isn't about love."

"Then why are you protecting them? Why are you forcing our hand? The shogunate is willing to spare you life and set you free, Christian or not, for information on the whereabouts of the ronin, Jin and pirate, Mugen. There is a signed and sealed letter ensuring your safety. You will never be hunted again."

She turned her haunted eyes upon her jailor and interrogator. They'd learned that torture did no good with her. They knew that, when asked any question, she would fall back on the story of her travels with the ronin and pirate. The two were dangerous men. They had killed several skilled assassins and, unbeknownst to the slight woman who looked so menacingly at them, had both begun assassinating those who might still have any desire to harm her.

"You don't understand," she breathed fiercely. She had grown up quite a bit in three years. She was slightly taller, though no more filled out than at fifteen. It was her heart and mind that had truly aged. She had become strong even after her capture and incarceration. "If you must ask me why I still protect them, you will never understand. I say again, even if by some miracle I knew where they were, I would not tell you. Telling you would only create a prison far worse for me outside this cell. I would have given up my honor and forfeited my duty to them."

"What do you know of these things?" The interrogator scoffed, still trying to get a firm grip on this girl's mind and motives. He had to break her. It had become his quest.

She smiled faintly. "I'm the daughter of a samurai. What do I not know of these things?" She ignored their laughter.

"Your father was a heretic who had forsaken his country and his duty for a foreign faith!"

"No." She breathed and trembled as hot tears rolled down her cheeks. She had thought she'd forgotten how to cry. "He simply found a higher Lord and cause to follow. One of heaven and not of earth. On that I cannot fault him."

Both men snarled. "If the Christian god is so great, tell me why it is that you revere these mortal men, these felons so completely."

She laughed and reached up to brush away the shimmering trails of clear, liquid crystal from her cheeks. "That, Sir, has everything to do with love."


	2. Stone

Earth is nothing like water. With water, if you simply cast in your nets or fashioned a spear and waited, you could feed yourself at any time of year. If you walked far enough inland, the salt left it and you could quench your thirst. If the world had taken the earth away from him and left him with only a net and a boat, he could have lived on the sea his whole life easily and never complained. He plunged the spade deeply into the ground again, upturning a large stone that he picked up with both hands and carried to the wall he had been building the better part of a week. A week and still the garden was a month away from completion. Earth was unkind to him. It did not move properly and it required care in order to yield anything at all. Even when something did come of all the toil put into such an endeavor, you had to wait for it and he was anything but patient.

He couldn't have said why he continued to return or what had guided him back to Zuikou's temple in the first place. He had simply found his way there after parting ways at the crossroad. He'd never been anywhere in his life that he felt he belonged and he still had not. With them, though, every once in a while he felt like he might find that place so long as they found it together. After a long time, he came to understand that the feeling meant they were the closest people to family he'd ever had in his life. He'd left them because he understood that, so long as they traveled together, they would never know safety or peace. That wouldn't have mattered so much to him or even old fish face, but she didn't deserve it. She deserved to have a life.

He remembered promising himself he wouldn't look back at them. He broke the promise at least five times before he couldn't see their forms any more. Fuu went first. She seemed lighted along the road and, often, the sun hit in just the right way so that her hair almost looked as if it were on fire. She vanished behind a tree and then was gone forever. Jin, on the other hand, remained in his vision for a long while, a tall and dark figure walking in the opposite direction along a tree-shaded lane that gradually vanished over a hill. He sighed at the memory. He could barely admit to himself that he'd considered following them. First he would have caught up with one, then the other, if only to convince them to remain with him a night or a week more. He hadn't been alone in all the time he had been separated from them, but, for the first time, he was lonely. They had fallen into a rhythm, a comfortable gait that had taken them through battles as well as the silent evenings around a campfire.

"Shit."

He drew the blade of the hoe back and scowled at the roots he'd found grown tightly around a rock. Both had to go. If the rock stayed, it would interfere with the rows of vegetables being strait and clean. Zuikou would most likely have a fit and tell him to start over again. If he left the roots, they would choke the seedlings that were to be planted near it. He frowned as he looked at the roots and wondered what kind of plant would grow around a stone rather than burry itself into the earth. Instead of cutting the roots away, he dug the stone up, freed the roots that had shallowly slipped into the earth, and placed the large piece near the base of the wall where the roots could still reach the soil. When he turned, he saw the old monk watching him from the porch.

"Come in. Lunch is ready."

Mugen nodded and gathered his tools. He put them away and washed his hands before joining the monk for their mid day meal. It was never much: a bowl of rice, some steamed vegetables and some sort of soup. He was grateful, though. Zuikou had taken him in without question, had bandaged any wound he'd had without question and had let him live quietly without ever mentioning his presence to anyone in town or who came to visit the temple. Mugen knew they were looking for him. He'd killed too many of the shogunate's men for them not to be searching for him.

He walked into the kitchen area where he was used to eating his meals only to see the slender form of a young woman standing in the doorway. He paused and scowled deeply when their eyes met. "You have to be fucking stupid coming to find me here. You could have led them here, you know?"

She smiled coyly and shrugged. "I was careful. In any case, I knew you would want this information," she held out the scroll to him and he took it sharply. Her smile melted away. "I can't help you anymore, Mugen. I want to, but I can't. If they ever connected me to you, I'd be risking more than just myself."

"Not really sure why you've helped me at all, Yatsuha," he opened the scroll and read it slowly. His reading had improved a great deal in the time he'd spent with Zuikou. His eyes widened as he read the kanji. "So… They've had her all this time. Here I thought I was helping."

"There is not much time," he looked up and nodded to the monk. "I will pack you something to take with you. You know how to make your way."

"The wall isn't finished."

"Finish it when you return," Zuikou turned and walked back into the kitchen.

He looked one more time to Yatsuha and found her eyes were turned from him. "Don't look for me again. Don't come here again. This is my fight."

It didn't take long for him to gather his things together and go. She watched him vanish into the overgrowth on the boarder of garden and then let out a long sigh. "I won't ever see him again."

She walked out to the road and joined her companion. "Did you tell him?"

She turned and met Otowa's gaze. "He doesn't love me. That's where it stands."

"He can't save her. The odds are too bad."

"I don't know," she mused and smiled once more. "Luck has always been on his side."


	3. Birth

Her brow was hot to the touch. She was so small and slight that her form barely filled the space between the sheet and mattress. He'd done all he could do and it was not enough. Jin had waited to claim Shino the required three years and had returned to the temple with high hopes only to have them dashed away. Shino was dead and her daughter was dying.

The child was the very image of her mother from her pale complexion to the shape of her jaw and the height of her brow. Jin had no way of knowing if Masumi was his daughter. The monks had told him Shino found herself with child within a few weeks of her arrival. A fever had forced her into labor two months before she was due. Shino survived long enough to hear the frail cries of her tiny child and give her a name.

Masumi had never been a healthy child. The same fever which took her mother and the prematurity of her birth caused her few years to be fraught with illness. No family wished to foster her into their home for fear she might pass away at any time. She had been raised by the monks and nuns who had sheltered her mother, but it would be Jin who buried her and finally gave her a family. He had no way of knowing if Masumi was his daughter, but he had loved her mother and that was enough to make the child his blood.

For three years he had made his hunters the hunted. In his own way he had done all he could to protect the others he considered family from the men who desired to end them. He remembered the last moments he had been in their presence. His years of discipline learning the way of the sword had been all that kept him from looking back. It was all which ensured each day since he didn't seek them out again to renew the family they had forged and bled for. He knew Masumi would not survive to the dawn, but there was part of him that still prayed she did so he could bring her to meet them... So she could have a family.

The few weeks he had been father to her had not been enough to make up for the years of being orphaned. The time could not answer her questions or quell her fear of death, but knowing she had a father who loved her had seemed to be enough to quiet her fevered mind and let her rest. She had not woken for nearly three days and as each breath became more shallow, Jin wondered if he should have stayed away. Perhaps if he'd not brought her the fragment of peace and security of knowing she was not and had never been alone in the world, she would have continued fighting. Perhaps, but then it could have been the strands of fate weaving him back to the beginning and the end of his journey and he had simply arrived at the end of Masumi's life because he needed to know she existed as much as she had needed to know someone loved her.

He did not weep when her life ended. He drew a blade and cut a long ribbon of her hair and tucked it away near the deep scar on his chest. He stood and walked to the garden and looked to the last stars as they were snuffed out by the coming dawn. Somewhere he imagined Fuu was just waking to the protests of her stomach and Mugen to the demands of his bowels. It was enough to draw the faintest curling of a smile at the corners of his lips.

"Was she yours?"

His sword was drawn and he was in a battle stance within the passing of a second. Before him was a figure his memory could never smudge away, nor did he have any desire to erase. "Mugen." He sheathed his sword.

"Was she yours," he asked again and took a step forward.

"I have claimed her."

He replied with a nod and as the gray light of day poured upon his tanned features, Jin could read the reason for his appearance. From his satchel he produced a flier and handed it to the ronin. "We've got a party to go to."

"So they have had her all this time."

"Does it surprise you?"

"No," the characters of her name seemed to burn into his eyes. They were advertising her execution date as if it were public entertainment. "They expect us to be there."

"I don't plan on disappointing them," Mugen replied and Jin tasted the bile rise from his stomach. "If I gotta die, it should be for something."

"Hn," Jin slipped the flier into his shirt. "There is very little time."

Mugen's eyes turned to the small house where the child's corpse was cooling. "Shouldn't you stay on a bit?"

Jin did not follow his gaze. "I have done all I can. I was not trained to make graves, only fill them."

The stillness of the birthing dawn faded as the world woke. Food was prepared, children played, prayers were uttered and people dreamed small dreams of their future. Far away from the child's corpse and one adventure fading to its conclusion, two men continued their journey seeking their third and the purpose they'd chosen.


	4. Threads

Blood tasted of metal and sweat of salt. She'd learned that over and over again in her travels with Mugen and Jin, but she'd never been so familiar with the flavors merging as she had become in the days approaching her execution. Death was more than welcome.

She'd been raped before. Once, in a field of sunflowers, a man who carried Death's scythe on a chain had taken her against her will. He'd pinned her and broken her and then tied her to a cross to draw out the cruel, wild outlaw, Mugen. When he came to save her, when their eyes met it was as if she'd never known him at all. She could have lived in the space of that moment forever. Even with the ache and shame ravaging her body. Even after the beating the one eyed devil had delivered. Even with all her hope stripped away until her heart was naked, the moment had been the closest to perfect she had ever known. She could have died and had not a single regret, not even the regret of never seeing her father.

Still, she had seen her father. She had seen him die. She should have been the next to perish had Jin not arrived. The same steadiness she had always known in him remained and something more she could not place. She could no more place what she saw in Jin than she could in Mugen, but she knew with her soul exactly what resonated between her and each man even if she could not name it. She had no desire to give such a thread of divinity a name.

She was on the floor of her cell and everything ached. Two days and it would be over. She focused on the memory of the eyes of Mugen and Jin. She drew the memory close and the corporeal world fell away and was replaced by intangible, ethereal threads of unknowable truth. When they left her alone and the door was locked, she drew her robes closed and dragged herself to her bed. It didn't matter how they tortured her, she had learned, so long as her face was unbruised for her beheading.

Fuu closed her eyes and let herself fall back to the days Mugen and Jin had hovered between life and death. The island was a quiet place. Her father's servant had circulated the rumor that she and her father were dead, as was their assassin-killed by the ronin he had dueled on the dock. A false grave still stood next to her father's on the quiet cliffside overlooking the burnt and decimated church. She had watched them sleep, had tended their battered bodies, had fed them and cared for them with the steady hands of one who had walked through hell.

It was a night as dark as the one which slowly invaded her cell. She had fallen into a light doze between Mugen and Jin. Their wounds had just begun to mend and close but had not yet ceased bleeding. At first she thought the elderly servant of her father had come and wrapped a blanket around her but then could feel the soft breath on her neck and recognized the strong arms cradling her close. She opened her eyes and saw Jin still asleep only a few feet away, then closed her eyes.

"Mugen," she whispered, but he did not reply. His steady breath and the fluidity of his embrace spoke to the depth of his sleep. Had he woken enough to see her form and mistaken her for a brothel whore? His arms tightened around her and he took a deep breath, his nose buried in her hair.

She sighed and let herself drift back to sleep. The next morning he still held her in his embrace and when she tried to move, he only held her closer. "Mugen," she said softly, covering his hands with her own. He breathed her in deeply and then relaxed his arms enough for her to move away. He rested on his stomach then, still no closer to consciousness. His features were peaceful as she had never seen them before. The premature lines in his brow were relaxed and smooth as if they had never existed. Impulsively, she reached out and gently touched his brow only to find him leaning into her fingertips. She smiled and continued her vigil over both men until, finally, they woke. Mugen never seemed to remember any of his time hidden in the shed; Fuu would never forget.

"It was something Sara said," his voice was distant and hollow as they walked through he night. Jin looked to Mugen in question. "She said I was like her- that nobody had ever loved me."

"Sara was broken. She wanted death."

"She was right. She saw me clearly- more clearly than I've ever seen myself," he let out a puff of breath and shook off the memory of the blind woman and her betrayal along with his first pang of guilt. "We need to think of a distraction."

"They will expect a distraction," Jin replied. "They will be prepared for it."

Mugen scowled, "Well then what the fuck do you wanna do? Walk up and ask them to let her go with us?"

Jin was silent for a long time. "Even if we did, they want all of us dead. Each of us has our own death warrant and they will not let us go, even if we tried to sacrifice ourselves for her."

"So it's a suicide mission," Mugen drawled softly, remembering the times he had faced Death and his harbingers. Fuu's voice had brought him back both times. Perhaps, if he was lucky, she'd make the journey with him this time. "That's what this has always been, I guess. We aren't walking away from it, but at least we'll die together."

The ronin couldn't help but smile at the pirate's words. "We will die with honor."

"Fuck honor," was Mugen's acrid reply. In all honesty, he was aching for a fight. He was ready to cut through as many men as he needed to in order to see her face one last time. Sara had said he'd never been loved. It had been true when she'd said it, but he knew it wasn't any longer. The memory of Fuu tied to the cross, meeting his gaze across the ruin of the church representing the difference in each of them that their world could not accept or tolerate. She wasn't his ideal woman, but he knew she loved him- she would always love him. That was worth fighting for and dying for.


	5. Skulls

"I have heard there is to be a public execution in the near future," he met the gaze of his companion. "What is the purpose of killing a teenage girl with no criminal offense aside from a blood relation to a rebel leader from decades ago?"

Sukeimon sat up slowly in the bed and watched the giant Dutchman dress carefully. "They are using her as a symbol and a statement that not even the shadow of such a man tainting this land will be tolerated."

"They are fools," Isaac said softly, scowling. "And hypocrites... They would slaughter an innocent girl who knows nothing of Christianity one day and break bread with me the next for the sake of trade."

He studied the striking form of his companion. He was taller, and more strongly built than any man he had seen before. His pale eyes and fiery hair made him more than simply exotic, but none of that began to compare with the gentleness and warmth of his personality. It was that which Sukeimon so admired and what he sought to protect. "What would you have me do?"

Isaac picked up the pink tanto from his dresser and gently examined each charm and sighed as he looked at the crosses hidden within the skull. Sukeimon had purchased it for him from one of her guards after he had realized she was one of the trio whom Isaac so often reminisced. "I want to help her. In all my time in Japan, I have been sequestered from its beauty and culture except for that one day. If I cannot have that day endure forever, I would have it at least that she live out her life safely."

"The shogunate expect her companions to attempt a rescue and are prepared for any distraction they might conjure," Sukeimon stood and moved to Isaac's side, touching his hand gently.

"Is there any sign of them being in Edo?"

"Not that I have heard, but they have remained hidden for three years. They may not even come..."

"They will be here, even if we do not have any sign of them until the moment of the execution," he murmured, placing the tanto back onto his dresser and smiled sadly to his lover. In a few weeks, he would return to Nagasaki and Sukeimon would remain in Edo. "This country can't be closed off forever. Someday it will need to become part of the world. What will other countries say when they look back at the murder of an innocent girl and countless others like her?"

The room stilled for a moment and Sukeimon sighed. "Let me speak to some people. If Mugen and Jin are seen in the city, we will find a way to reach them."

"And if we fail," Isaac looked to his hands. "If we fail, I will ensure the girl is lain to rest near her father."


	6. Debt

The girl, Fuu, was a problem. That was why the Shogunate captured her and why they decided to use her to draw the ronin and the pirate out of hiding. Fear is a powerful motivator for people and governments alike. The three travelers represented everything that was out of control in Japan at the time and, as the years progressed, stricter and more stringent laws and social rules were put in place in order to stifle and cut away all that wasn't static and adhering to the accepted conformity. She had to die. They all had to die. It was that simple.

When you tell a story, you inevitably become a part of it. I tried not to integrate myself into their story, but I was a part of it and I still am. Being a detective, I learned all I could about my suspects. I learned her history and her father and mother's histories. I traced Mugen's criminal past and the fate of Jin's sensei, and I knew, even as I gathered information for my employers, what I was doing was wrong.

She walked along the road, parting ways from the two men who had made it their business to help her find her father. She made it half the day without being taken into custody, but, truthfully, it wasn't because she knew I was following her that she eluded me. I didn't want to arrest her. I wanted to let her live the life they'd nearly died to ensure she'd keep, but I knew, if not me, eventually another would be sent and they'd take her and torture her and, if only for the short trip back to Edo, I could afford her the respect she'd won.

She is a singular person with a powerful will. I don't know if she recognized me and I am not certain I wanted her to. I kept my hat low and spoke little to her once I did capture her. When she was handed over to the authorities in Edo, I heard from her guards that she would not break. For three years, she would not break and, finally, it was her will that broke me. I found Otowa and Yatsuha without any real effort, knowing the woman loved the pirate and would find a way to bring him the information he would need to attempt to save the girl. Mugen would find Jin and the two would do what they could... But it wasn't enough.

I found Sukeimon in Edo and brought him the tanto to purchase. I knew, without fail, he would deliver it to the Dutchman, Isaac, who would do all he could to save Fuu as well, and, finally, I went to the new leader of the now powerful Kawara clan just outside of Edo.

In three years, the son of the merciful leader who killed himself to regain his clan's honor had built himself into a more fearsome leader than his father could have ever been. The boy, Susuke, had become a man at the age of twelve and, by fifteen, had stained his hands red with the blood he spilled to protect his territory and the people his father had failed. As I sat across from the young man whose face was still so much more the boy than the man, I knew I was looking into my own death if I was not careful.

"Why have you sought me out, Detective?"

I chose my words carefully, knowing the debt the yakuza boss owed the ronin and pirate as well as the girl who I'd delivered to torture and imminent execution. "There is something I think we have in common."

His brow raised and he smirked darkly. "If you mean the girl who is going to be executed in two days, yes... I know," I saw how quickly the mirth left his eyes and realized how quickly my life might end with the wrong words. "Tell me, Detective, did you know I have made it my business to find a way to repay Jin for his help and advice? My intended considers Fuu a dear friend and, when I learned she was held prisoner- that you had arrested her to begin with- I knew I had found the best possible way to ensure my debt to the ronin was wiped clean?"

The hair on the back of my neck stood and a chill ran through my body as the young murderer clicked the hilt of his katana from its sheath. He held my gaze unwaveringly, waiting on my answer with measured, frightening calm. "If it hadn't been me, it would have been someone else who wouldn't have wanted to find a way to free her... Who wouldn't have cared."

Susuke raised his brow again, "Go on."

"I made certain Mugen knew of Fuu's arrest and scheduled execution and I've made contact with a man who can smuggle her out of the country once she's freed," I said, my voice cracking. I've never been so afraid of anyone as I was that fifteen year old boy. "I've done all I can. You were the last person I needed to enlist in her rescue."

"And why me?" He was toying with me. I felt like a bird plucked from the sky by a skillful cat, held immobile by claws and teeth.

"Because I know you can find them before they reach Edo. They have evaded even my notice for three years and I must get them certain documents- information that will make their job much easier."

"Give me the documents."

I placed the sealed parchment between us. Maps of the jail, an accurate log of guard rotations and schedules and Fuu's exact location waited to find its way into the hands of the pirate and ronin. "I will do what I can to be a distraction."

Susuke took the documents and I heard his sword click back into the scabbard. He studied me for an eternity before speaking, "If this is a trap for them, your life is forfeit. You and everyone you love or care about will die."

I left his home with bile rising in my throat. I knew I was a dead man no matter what happened, it was only a matter of who struck the blow. If all went according to my plan, it would be my hand reclaiming the shroud of honor required by law to protect my family from the taint of association to a traitor. Fuu, her pirate and her ronin would be on a boat bound for Asia and beyond and Susuke would repay his debt. All would be right with the world.


	7. Ember

Fire cannot consume what is already dead. Disease cannot kill a corpse. Arrows cannot pierce a heart that ceased to beat, and a sword cannot cleave a soul when it is already claimed by the afterlife. I am dead, but they made me want life to continue without me.

I met them where all roads converge. I had been long deceased, but my body refused and refuses still to stop and rest. He was the wild man from the south who knew my songs. She was the innocent I fished from the river. Did they know I could see their soul? And the third. I never knew him, but he made up the last of the trinity that is one- that is honor and truth and everything worth dying for, including love.

I have lived in the shadows, watching. Ever watching the walls and streets and houses and people of Edo. I sought the trinity I knew only to be as divine as the lost breath of my beloved and children. I sought them because I knew the shogunate would never stop until all three were dead, and I could not stand to see another piece of heaven on earth be torn away by cruelty and lust for power.

She is the bait on the hook. I was too weak to save her on the road to Edo. I am not weak any longer and I wait patiently for the ronin and the pirate to make their way to her- who holds them both together and apart at once. They will come. The pulse of her slowly breaking heart calls them from any distance and the song of her screams trouble their sleep until she is safe again... Or all three are gone from this earth.

I will not make any move to contact them. I will not let them know I see them and, until the moment is right, I will wait and plan each second until they need me. I have seen all, watched all from the deepest shadows and dankest alleyways. I will be what the Christians call a guardian angel- though I know not what angel has lived through the fires I have known. Perhaps, when all are safe, I will be able to go beyond to my family... Perhaps, if all are dead, my place will only be to avenge and burn once again until this city and all who harmed her are nothing but ash and corpses, pain and death.


	8. Orchid

Labor had not been kind. The child had nearly torn her asunder after a full day of agony, and the blood would not stop. What made it all more terrible was that Yatsuha had to face birthing his child alone. What made it even more unbearable was that she would be forced to give the little boy up to save her family's honor, such as it was. Perhaps she had simply given up. Who is to say, now?

And what of his father? The little howling urchin had a father somewhere in the world. As the old priest held the mewling babe in his arms, Zuikou knew the child had a father as surely as he knew who had cobbled together his garden wall. How many half brothers and sisters did the matricidal infant call family in the world was anyone's guess. At least this boy would know his father's name and would know his father's story.

It was on the edge of Edo when Susuke's man was found tracking Mugen and Jin. Mugen had heard the twig snap and Jin had fallen into shadow as their pursuer advanced. A fraction of a fraction slower, and his head would have toppled to the ground, but his master had warned him of their skill with the sword and he knew he would be the hunted. The warning, however, did not entirely save him from being pinned to the ground by a very angry pirate.

"I am sent by Susuke of the Kawara clan to bring you information."

Mugen did not release the pressure of his shoe from the assassin's breastbone, "Oh?" He dug in his heel as Jin advanced, "What the hell does he have to say to us?"

"It is about the woman named Fu now imprisoned. He sends detailed information about her location and the security of her cell. He wished to ensure you received the information to settle his debt to the both of you."

Jin sheathed his katana and Mugen removed his foot from the assassin's sternum. He stood and procured parchments from his satchel and placed them in the ronin's hand before moving quickly into the shadows. Jin examined the maps and ledgers carefully before looking to Mugen with a dark expression. "I believe we can get into the prison, but I doubt we can exit it alive."

Mugen scoffed and met Jin's gaze with a smirk of pure defiance. "Then she'll die on my sword knowing she isn't alone and that we'll both be following her. I ain't gonna let her get her head lopped off for some damned show of power."

"Then let us hurry. We have little time."

As dawn crested the garden, the old priest listened to the soft breathing of the infant asleep in his bed. As the sun dawned on the unfinished wall, a stone enshrouded in roots was bathed in morning light and the single golden orchid crowning the clod of limestone cast a shadow over newly upturned and planted soil.

"Your father's story began in a tea house where he met a girl who taught him a great lesson: there is no journey without purpose, and fate is nothing more than roads merging for a time. Your father's story is her story, and only reached its conclusion because they chose for the journey to end."


End file.
